The Primary Investor We Should Imitate
Jesus cast his bread in pursuit of relationships. The preacher of Ecclesiastes cast his bread in pursuit of pleasure.
Yesterday, we learned that an Ecclesiastes 11 breadcaster is an investor. Everyone is an investor. And we have two ways in which we can invest the BREAD (Beliefs, Resources, Energy, Affections, and Dedication) we’ve been given. We can invest in material possessions, or we can invest in relationships.
If you’re new to the Bible, one of the central realities of the first and second testaments in scripture is how Jesus is the perfection of all who came before him. Jesus is a greater prophet than Elijah, a greater high priest than Aaron, a greater king than David, a greater servant than Moses, and a better first man than Adam.
In a different respect, Jesus was a greater breadcaster than the preacher who penned Ecclesiastes. Like the preacher, Jesus had every enjoyment at his disposal. But instead of immersing himself in pleasures, he remained focused on what mattered.
Like those receiving a diagnosis that their lives would soon be over, Jesus knew he only had three years remaining when he started his public ministry. Rather than focus on goals, he chose this time to invest in ordinary men's and women's lives.
Jesus wrote the perfect life that mattered most. This is the major difference between these two men. Jesus cast his bread in pursuit of relationships. The preacher of Ecclesiastes cast his bread in pursuit of pleasure.
But why is Jesus someone we should not only trust for our salvation but also someone we should imitate?
Because Jesus Had an Undeniable Impact
Christ’s impact on this world is undeniable. Despite little association with the Christian church, in a 2016 New Statesman article titled “Why I Was Wrong About Christianity,” British historian Tom Holland wrote,
Today, even as belief in God fades across the West, the countries that were once collectively known as Christendom continue to bear the stamp of the two-millennia-old revolution that Christianity represents. It is the principal reason why, by and large, most of us who live in post-Christian societies still take for granted that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering. It is why we generally assume that every human life is of equal value. In my morals and ethics, I have learned to accept that I am not Greek or Roman at all but thoroughly and proudly Christian.[1]
Holland’s book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World is a must-read for anyone who thinks Jesus's teachings have done more harm than good. In this work, Holland notes, “To live in a Western country is to live in a society still utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions.”[2]
In Jesus, we see how one life can shift the entire course of human history. Keep in mind that Jesus entered a world that held few of the ideals many Western Christians value today. Horrible injustices such as infanticide, pedophilia, and slavery were just a few brief examples of the many ways ancient Greek and Roman cultures created a system of systemic oppression against the weak and vulnerable.
But after Christ came to earth, human society's ideals shifted in very dramatic ways. One of the most thought-provoking books on this topic is Alvin Schmidt’s How Christianity Changed the World. In this work, the University of Nebraska professor covers over a dozen ways in which the teachings of Jesus contribute to the “normal society” we often take for granted today.
Schmidt writes, “The lives that [Jesus] transformed in turn changed and transformed much of the world: its morals, ethics, health care, education, economics, science, law, the fine arts, and government.”[3] Based on this extraordinary impact Christ has had on society, Schmidt concluded,
I am fully persuaded that had Jesus Christ never walked the dusty paths of ancient Palestine, suffered, died, and risen from the dead, and never assembled around him a small group of disciples who spread out into the pagan world, the West would not have attained its high level of civilization, giving it the many human benefits it enjoys today.[4]
That is quite a statement.
